East Lee - WKTV Journal

Second-grader Alexa Montano will be working with 11th-graders Kaniya Raby, left, and Sharolyn Rodriguez over the next two months to learn more about Plaster Creek (School News Network)

On a sunny, spring-like day, Kara Jones rounded up her second-grade students from Godfrey-Lee’s Early Childhood Center and walked with them across the district’s athletic fields adjacent to Plaster Creek. Their destination? The neighboring East Lee Campus, Godfrey-Lee Public Schools’ alternative high school program.

Once inside the building, Jones’ students scattered to classrooms and got acquainted with East Lee students, who read the younger pupils books that they had written about the creek outside.

Some of the second-graders were timid; others talkative. One girl had a case of the giggles. The meeting was the first of several weekly meetups that will happen between the two groups from now until the end of May as part of a “Community Legacy” unit at the high school, which uses a problem-based learning model.

Sharolyn Rodriguez and Kaniya Raby, 11th-graders, were all smiles as they got to know second-grader Alexa Montano. Kaniya said that creating the book was a little stressful and a lot of fun.

“Reading it to her just makes it all the more worth it,” said Kaniya, pointing to Alexa.

Second-grader Alfredo DeLeon said he liked the book that East Lee students Logan Barton and Joel Garcia wrote to teach him about Plaster Creek.

“We made it fun — added a time machine — and didn’t try to use big words,” said Joel. “I tried to make it as simple as possible.”

Second-grader Carlos Urbina and 10th-grader Christopher Andrade get to know each other at East Lee Campus. (School News Network)

Troubled Water

While keeping it as simple as possible will be necessary in order to share what they’re learning with the second-graders, East Lee students have chosen a complex issue to tackle for this unit.

“As a school we’re trying to do something that makes an impact on the bigger community around us,” said English teacher Sarah Byrne, who is team-teaching the unit with social studies teacher Justin Noordhoek. “The students have chosen to focus on cleaning up Plaster Creek, which is the most polluted waterway in West Michigan, we’ve learned.”

The unit began with students researching the waterway, which runs alongside East Lee Campus and the Early Childhood Center, and taking a bus tour of the Plaster Creek watershed and Wyoming area led by David Britten, former superintendent and current historian for the district. The bus tour gave the students a chance to photograph the current landscape and understand the historical factors that contributed to pollution in the creek.

While they’re still gathering data and learning about Plaster Creek, East Lee students are moving into the action phase of their study. The students will look to Plaster Creek Stewards, a project led by faculty, staff, and students from Calvin College, for guidance. The group will lead the Godfrey-Lee students in activities at Shadyside Park in Dutton to help them recognize creek-related problems in agricultural areas, then will advise them on ways they can help to restore the watershed. This may include hands-on restoration efforts such as planting trees and installing rain gardens.

Partnering with with Jones’ class to pass on what they are learning seemed like a good fit for the East Lee students.

Noordhoek said that in the past, he’s noticed the students really thrive when working with younger students.

“I really think a lot of them have so much talent with little kids and they don’t sometimes see that in themselves,” said Noordhoek.

Second-grader Diego Pina-Salcedo answers questions about his likes and dislikes with East Lee Campus student Bryan Barrios. (School News Network)

Leaving a Legacy Together

Jones, who has created and taught thematic units in her second-grade classroom on legacy concepts, was a natural partner for East Lee. The high school students will soon create lesson plans about Plaster Creek and teach them to Jones’ class. The two classes will also journal, take field trips, and plant trees together.

Jones said that teachers don’t often get the chance to bring different age levels together to work on a shared project. She said she hopes the collaboration will push her students to learn and will make the older students mindful of how they interact with younger ones, challenging everyone involved.

“I hope that they understand their environmental impact and that they make a new friend in the process,” said Jones.

Noordhoek said that he hopes this project shows students that they don’t need to wait for someone else to come and make a difference, and that they will feel empowered to do something when they recognize a problem: “They can be their own agents of change.”

Added Byrne, “Always our goal, no matter what projects we do, is that students are aware that they have the power to make the world a better place. If we can improve their literacy and critical thinking skills, and knowledge of history while doing this — that’s perfect.”

For more stories on local schools, visit schoolnewsnetwork.org.

Using what they’ve learned about Plaster Creek so far, East Lee students created books to share with students in Kara Jones’ second-grade class. (School News Network)

By: David Britten, Superintendent of Godfrey-Lee Public Schools

The State of Michigan has released the graduation rates for the cohort Class of 2014-15 and overall they continue to climb.

Reports by local media tend to show a district’s combined graduation rate, lumping together all of the high schools within a district, including those designed to provide an alternative pathway to a high school diploma or GED for students who for many reasons were not successful at their home school.

The chart below depicts the 4, 5 and 6 year graduation rates for those students in our district who graduated in 2015. As you can clearly see, the rates continue to improve overall but don’t tell the full story for each high school.

14-15 graduation dropout trend all rate years/all students

Lee High School, which has experienced significant growth as well as a substantial cultural change since the dawn of the 21st century, continues a strong 4-year on-time graduation trend as the chart below depicts. Considering that the community battles with the highest child poverty rate in the county and our extraordinary staff works to help many limited-English-proficient students meet success, we should be proud of what our students, parents and staff accomplish each year!

GodfreyLee — 14-15 graduation dropout trend Lee High School

The trend for Lee High School’s graduation rate continues to be higher than the statewide graduation rate as the following two charts indicate:

GodfreyLeeDropoutTrend — 14-15 graduation dropout trend statewide

East Lee Campus is a non-traditional high school that provides many young men and women with what often is their last chance to successfully complete high school or prepare for the GED test. This school is an “open enrollment” campus that allows students who have dropped out or find they are struggling due to a number of life’s circumstances to return to the classroom. Many are already behind in their education and it isn’t unusual for students to take an additional year or two to complete their graduation requirements. We believe the opportunity we provide these students is invaluable and contributes positively to the community and Greater Grand Rapids area at large. The federal and state government and many of our citizens, however, don’t always see it that way and prefer to label our district as sub-standard or failing. Little do they know.

The chart below illustrates the 4-year graduation rate at East Lee but as I pointed out, it’s unfair to brand the school as anything but exemplary given that most students arrive there behind in their respective educations. Because it’s not unusual for a student to need a 5th year to get on track and successfully complete the Michigan Merit Curriculum requirements for graduation, the next subsequent slide shows the positive 5-year trend for graduates through 2015.

14-15 graduation dropout trend 2015 graduation cohort

As you can see from the chart below, the trend has accelerated significantly since 2010 but actually, it has been improving since the graduation rate was sort of drifting along hit bottom in 2009-10, as the next chart shows. At that point, we made some changes and much of this improvement is attributable to effective leadership and the hard work of staff and students to rebrand the school and develop a more rigorous academic and job skills focus. Since those changes, the improvement has been very positive.

This chart is a similar trend chart as the one above but for the four years preceding. If you follow this one to the one above it, you will get an idea of the dramatic turnaround at East Lee Campus these past seven years.

We’re proud of our high schools (as we are of all our schools) and the success they are achieving! We’re very excited for the future of our students who have been demonstrating time and again they have what it takes to overcome many obstacles they face and reach their educational goals and life dreams.

If you wish to examine this data in more detail or look at other data for our district, state or any school in the state, you can go to http://www.mischooldata.org.